#508 Dropping your cell phone on the sidewalk and then realizing it’s totally fine

Neil Pasricha

It’s a terrible scene.

As that cell phone, digital camera, or pair of sunglasses crash lands on the concrete everyone gasps as it crunches, bounces, and skids hard…

Suddenly your eyes blur, stomach twists, and world flips as you fade back and suddenly realize you’re covered in scrubs inside a busy hospital ER.

You glance down the hall and see ambulance guys racing towards you wheeling your bloody cell phone strapped to a gurney without any noticeable lights or beeps. Someone’s got an icebox holding the battery case that blew off and a nurse is screaming that signal strength has flatlined.

Your eyebrows furrow and  pupils dilate as you snap on latex gloves, pull up your face mask, and start frantically checking for vitals. You scan for signs of blunt trauma, pop the battery in and out, and then finally stare straight into your cell phone’s face while closing your eyes, wincing, and forcing yourself to push Power.

There is a pause.

Nurses lean in with wide hopeful eyes, ambulance guys jostle and crowd, and nervous friends squeeze their own phones tightly for comfort and support. Then suddenly as everyone waits… and waits… and wait…

The power flashes and blinks back on.

And there is cheering.

AWESOME!

— Email message —

“After finding your blog 2 months ago and reading it daily I finally made it to the store to buy The Book of Awesome. Also on the agenda that day was meeting up with a friend i haven’t seen for 8 months. So our supper was me saying: ‘because of this blog and this book i’ve decided to live the awesomest life ever! This is my new handbook!’ It’s awesome inspiring people to live a better and richer life by appreciating the awesomeness they experience daily. I hope there’s a Book of Awesome 2 in the works! p.s. for dinner I went for the AWESOME Denny’s Slamburger, a late night special!” – Alyssa

Photo from: here

41 thoughts to “#508 Dropping your cell phone on the sidewalk and then realizing it’s totally fine”

  2. I love when that happens! Of course, it’d be better if the phone wasn’t dropped to begin with, but the huge wave of relief that overcomes you when you realize it’s fun is awesome! :)

  4. That was a great scenario you wrote out there, Neil. That is how it feels sometimes. I drop my cell phone so often now, I don’t even blink twice anymore. Its like a super phone or something, it never breaks….knock on wood.

    1. Oh, and I hope everyone is having lots of fun at the book party today!! I’m so sad that I couldn’t make it up there to go.

  6. “Nurses lean in with wide hopeful eyes, ambulance guys jostle and crowd, and nervous friends squeeze their own phones tightly for comfort and support.”

    Ha ha! That was good! Really good!

    I have always wondered if the things we “manufacture” have no “life” .. a la E.T.

    “home, home,…”

  7. One time, this kid knocked my phone off a desk, onto a stage, and then off the stage. It was the first time I had ever actually dropped my phone.
    Thank God for cases.

    1. I dropped my MacBook for the 1st time the other day. I’m 26yrs old and I had to intentionally stop myself from bursting into tears before even checking if it’s ok. I just kept thinking “Thesis! Reports! Notes! My life is over!”

      Plus j drop my phone everytoms I get out the car. EVER. RY. TIME.

      And this is off subject but, I got the final jeopardy question right and all the contestants got it wrong! IN YO FACE!

  10. I’m old enough to remember when the only company that made phones was AT&T, and they MADE phones. You could drop them, kick them, spill on them, nothing would hurt them. They weighed 20 pounds, worked for 20 years, and were black. Oh yeah, they had a wire sticking out of the back end also.

    But they worked. If they didn’t AT&T came to your house and fixed or replaced it. For free.

    The old Awesome times.

  11. Wow! I love the way that was written! Being in the medical profession, I can appreciate it!
    Like someone else said, the huge wave of relief!
    -AWESOME

  12. I am the most clumsiest person ever. I always drop my phone, but thank goodness it always survives!

    Except the time i used it in the shower.. :)

    1. lol. the shower.
      ive dropped my phone sooo many times and it hasnt even been scratched, but there’s always that oneee drop that’ll get you :(

  13. Good tip for water-logged cell phones: stick it in a bag of dry, uncooked rice. In 24 hours, you may experience the same euphoria. Kinda like your phone was in a coma and then suddenly its wee eyes flutter open and it’s alive!!!!

  15. I’ve been addicted to your website since a couple of months and I just got the book !
    Thanks a million !!
    (Is the book going to be translated in French ?, I am promoting it among my friends and family but they ‘re not all english speakers so…)

  16. im pretty sure i drop my phone at least once a week, that’s why i made sure to buy a durable phone. im way to scared to get a iphone, those things look so breakable! but it tis a great relief when your riding your bike and your phone slips out of your back pocket and when you go back to get it not a single scratch ;p it’s like playing russian roulette or something along those lines

  17. Not just phones either, basically anything that you could expect to break after a bad drop. AWESOME!

  19. This painted the most beautiful mental image. Love it. You’re so good at that. :)

    The other day … I dropped my phone on my foot and inadvertently kicked it through a gravel parking lot. I was devastated and experienced a 10 second über-panic. But whoever commented about the iPhone, know this: it held up. It survived. It lives.

    (Granted, it’s in a case … but still.)

  21. This is such a massive relief. My cell phone is a fighter, baby. He’s been dropped on the sidewalk, tossed onto the ground when I was aiming for something soft like a bed(having no hand-eye coordination ftw), and sat on. No matter what I put him through he keeps on ticking, reminding me that he’s in for the long haul, or at least until my contract is up next year.

  23. Ok… this really IS awesome.

    This cell-phone dropping happened to me today, and today is also the first time I’m reading this blog. Interestingly (and also awesomely) I saw your book on the shelf at Indigo in Yorkdale Mall as I was going to read Malcolm Gladwell, as a sort of precursor to this post. The cover and title jumped out at me, but I moved on in the hustle+bustle of my day.

    Later I typed ‘Toronto Blogger’ into Google, (cuz I absolutely LOVE Toronto, *and* blogs) and somehow made my way here.

    Okay… that was the awesome miracle synchronicities that got me here, now on to the cell-phone story.

    Now, I have a generation 1 Blackberry. I love it dearly :) Because of it’s size and weight, my family and I consistently make fun of it. My brother Nick dubbed it the “BrickBerry” because well… it feels like a brick.

    My brother Drew says we could use it as a weapon. It’s been referred to as having more mass than a black hole (not sure if this is scientifically possible), and it’s been suggested that I use it in place of lifting weights.

    There is a supreme upside to the BrickBerry — and that is that it is invincible. If I ever drop it, I’m 1000% percent sure it is fine. It happened today, and sure enough, completely fine.

    And that. is. awesome.

    Thanks so much for inspiring me to share this tale

    Love the blog, concept, approach, delivery and your last name.

    Rock on.
    -J

  24. What is even more awesome is when you think someone stole your car but you find out you just parked it in the wrong spot

  25. Neil,
    Today we were riding a bus in Turkey and a pair of sunglasses slid right out the door! The man whose sunglasses they were realized what happened about two seconds after 3 separate people gasped as they disappeared. The driver stopped immediately and the guy ran from the bus. He climbed back on with his unblemished sunglasses in hand seconds later. Totally Awesome!

  26. Mmm, has me thinking of the days with my Rubber Encased dust-resistant tank of a Motorola. There’s no telling how many times that thing hit the concrete, fell down stairs, etc.

  27. A good few years back as I was getting into a Jeep in the middle of a neighbourhood street, my cell phone fell out of my pocket and into a large pile of snow. I was in Oakville on my way to this party in Hamilton. I didn’t notice that my phone was missing until I was about to call my parents at midnight to wish them a Happy New Year. I freaked out! When we got back to Oakville the following day…a good 24 hours later, I found my phone.I can’t believe someone didn’t run over it. I found it right where I dropped it…in the middle of the street…in a pile of snow…a little wet, but other than that perfectly fine. Oh and did I mention it was still on and working? AWESOME!

  28. I dropped my new phone (three days old), not for the first time, but this was the first time I had 10 little nicks on the bottom. My friends were fighting over it, and I’m still angry that I dropped it. Does anyone know how to undo the little nicks on my cell phone? Thanks.

  29. This is what I love about having an oldish Hand-me-Down phone, It’s a little Samsung Flip phone from 2006 (Le Gasp) and I call it my Sam-a-Saurus. The best thing about it, while other peoples phones hit the ground/snow/coffee, they self destruct and have to be carefully revived. My phone: Falls out of hands, hits ground and tumbles before stopping and coming out of the accident with a few little scrapes to the outside screen, but the little guy holds through and works fine to this day, I’ll replace my little Sammy-saurus the day it stops working due to natural causes. He’s still holding strong, even after 5 years of wear and tear ;)

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  36. I dropped my LG cell phone and nothing will come up on the inside screen, but the outside screen to show you are charging works, and that is all that is working. Do they repair these or just throw them away?? LIG

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